Faith in Testimony to Faith in Tradition: The Debate Over Miracles and Convulsions in the Nouvelles Ecclésiastiques, 1728-1750

Angela Haas

In 1748, the Scottish philosopher David Hume wrote that never in human history had
there been a truly well-attested miracle. He claimed that the verification of a miracle
would require manifold testimonies from men of “unquestioned good-sense, education,
and learning,” and of “credit and reputation in the eyes of mankind.”[1] In addition, he maintained that the miracles would have to be “performed in such
a public manner and in so celebrated a part of the world, as to render the detection
unavoidable.”[2] However, the miracles reported at the cemetery of Saint-Médard left him somewhat
baffled. Surprisingly, this particular set of events fit his criteria for a well-attested
miracle. He admitted that these miracles were “proven on the spot, before judges of
unquestioned integrity, attested by witnesses of credit and distinction, in a learned
age, and on the most eminent theatre that is now in the world [Paris].”[3] Hume was thus left with no other choice but to rely on the a priori supposition that miracles were an “absolute impossibility.”[4] Hume based his final judgment upon natural reason, which led him to reject human
testimony in favor of the laws of Nature. Likewise, in the wake of the Saint-Médard
episode, many who based their personal judgment upon Christian principles, rejected
human testament in favor of the laws of God. The series of miracles and convulsions
that erupted in the early 1730s in Paris sparked an elaborate debate regarding the
authenticity of miracles, and the reliability of human testimony. This debate, as
recorded in the Jansenist newspaper, the Nouvelles ecclésiastiques,suggests that many people were not becoming more rational or less religious. In fact,
they were internalizing their faith and thus, they ceased to rely on the judgment
of others in matters of faith, and they began to rely more heavily upon Church tradition.

Miracles, Convulsions and the Saintly Deacon

On May 1, 1727 the Jansenist deacon François de Pâris died in Paris. Although he belonged
to a wealthy family,[5] he was buried in the Saint-Médard cemetery in the impoverished Saint-Marceau quarter,
as a display of his extreme piety and asceticism. Crowds of worshiping faithful, mostly
common folk from the surrounding parishes, flocked to his tomb. After a few days,
there were various reports of miraculous cures from blindness, deafness, paralysis
and other afflictions, all of which were attributed to the saintly deacon. In the
following years, news of these miraculous events spread, the number of visitors to
the cemetery grew rapidly, and the number of miracles reported there increased dramatically.[6]

The development of a popular religious cult at Saint-Médard alarmed both ecclesiastical
and royal authorities. In July 1731, some adherents of the cult began to experience
convulsions, which resulted in physical and spiritual healing. While many disregarded
the miracles and convulsions as ridiculous, others described them as “terrifying,”
“diabolical,” “indecent,” “obscene” and “scandalous.”[7] In the wake of this outbreak of convulsions, both royal and Church officials became
increasingly concerned that this cult posed a serious threat to social stability.
This fear was exacerbated by the fact that the deacon had quickly become a saintly
hero in the eyes of Jansenists. Pâris was an appelant, that is, he opposed the papal bull Unigenitus. Promulgated in 1713, this bull condemned conciliarism and predestination, among other
unorthodox tenets commonly held by Jansensists. Thus, as an exceptionally pious appelant, François de Pâris was a perfect symbol of the Jansenist struggle against the monarchy
and the Church. This struggle was fundamental to the development of religion and politics
in eighteenth-century France. The royal and ecclesiastical anxiety caused by this
affiliation of the deacon with the recalcitrant Jansenists resulted in severe suppression
of the cult, including closing the Saint-Médard cemetery on January 27, 1732.[8] One sarcastic commentator posted a placard outside the cemetery that read: “By
order of the King, it is forbidden for God to make miracles in this place.”[9] As this placard suggests, instead of stifling the cult as the monarchy had hoped,
this attempt at suppression increased enthusiasm.

Despite the closing of the cemetery, the convulsions multiplied. Now forced to meet
in private, the convulsionaries' practices became more violent and bizarre. This included
reciting prophecies, and various forms of masochism, such as beating, stabbing, choking,
and even crucifying participants.[10] The afflicted prayed for God to give them the power to endure these tortures.
They claimed to feel no pain and to suffer no injury. They considered the experience
pleasurable and they found relief in this procedure.[11] Most participants of the cult seem to have been uneducated laboring poor. However,
these laboring poor were also joined by nobles, clergy, merchants, financiers, cultivated
men of letters, lawyers, and notaries.[12] Despite the cult's respectable social makeup, the extreme and controversial nature
of their practices led the convulsionaries to lose much of their public support by
the mid-1730s.[13] Despite manifold criticisms from the Church, the monarchy, and other contemporaries,
the cult maintained a wide array of supporters, which ranged from common folk, to
magistrates in the Parlement of Paris, to nobles at Court.[14] The rise of this cult also sparked an elaborate debate concerning the authenticity
of miraculous events, and the legitimacy of evidence supporting these miracles.

The Nouvelles Ecclésiastiques: From Witness Testimony to Church Tradition

While written works supporting the miracles came in a variety of forms, from letters
by theologians to widely-distributed works titled, Collections of Miracles, by the early 1730s, the most avid and widely-distributed support of these miracles
was found within the illegally-published Jansenist newspaper, the Nouvelles ecclésiastiques.The primary goal of the Nouvelles ecclésiastiques was to expose the injustices created by the papal bull Unigenitus. Although the papal bull Unigenitus had been promulgated nearly twenty years earlier, in the 1720s and 1730s the controversy
surrounding it still raged in Paris. This bull denounced the works of the theologian
Pasquier Quesnel as dangerous, and it condemned various ideas commonly held by Jansenists,
including the doctrine of predestination and conciliarism.[15]Unigenitus also confirmed the hierarchy of the Church, placing the pope over regional bishops,
the bishops over the lower clergy and, most controversially, spiritual power over
temporal. Not only did Jansenists criticize Unigenitus, but so too did the magistrates in the Parlement of Paris, who resented the placement
of the Church over the State. Many bishops criticized it because they resented the
inference that the pope had the power to undermine the authority of the Gallican Church,
while others rejected the bull on theological grounds. The bull was similarly rejected
by nearly three quarters of the lower clergy, and consequently by their loyal congregations,
who believed that it thwarted the spiritual authority of parish priests.[16] Thus, the Nouvelles ecclésiastiques had the potential to reach out to a very large, diverse, and sympathetic audience.

Moreover, the Nouvellistes overtly proclaimed their goal to appeal to common folk, which further increased the
accessibility and appeal of the paper to a broad readership. The opening article of
the first issue proclaimed that while the "ordinary lay faithful” may have believed
that the disputes about Unigenitus “concerned only opposing schools of thought better
left to Theologians to fight over and unbecoming for simple laypeople to take part
in,” in fact, the dire circumstances made it necessary to “place the facts before
the eyes of the Public.”[17] The first issue made its intended audience very clear: "the Ecclesiastical News
[is] particularly for the simple and for the people who cannot give all their attention
to this great affair [the bull Unigenitus]."[18] The paper consistently used phrasing such as "People are saying," to sugget that
they gathered their information from the people, which "gave credence to the opinions
of ordinary people."[19] The Nouvelles exposed convoluted scandals with accurate, yet circumstantial evidence. It also provided
detailed, clear explanations of complex theological issues, which "had the trick of
flattering the reader's intellectual self-esteem."[20] While the paper was clearly read by many highly-educated individuals, it aimed
to obtain the loyalty of the populace as a whole. This underground newspaper “became
the tribunal of the public and the linchpin in the Jansenist propaganda effort to
galvanize popular opposition to Unigenitus.”[21] They focused very strongly upon the persecution of the Jansenists by the higher
powers of Church and State in order to rally the lower classes behind the appelant cause. The Nouvelles exposed persecution, provided spiritual advice and made regular calls to their "Public"
in hope of opening the eyes of those who were sleeping through the scandal around
them.

Every issue between 1730 and 1735, made some reference to the miracles at Saint-Médard.[22] The paper consistently encouraged readers of all social and educational backgrounds
to use their own reason to assess the legitimacy of the miraculous events of their
time. However, the way in which the Nouvelles ecclésiastiques encouraged readers to apply this reason changed over time. In the early years of
the paper, it consistently stressed reliance upon human testimony as evidence for
the miracles. However, from the mid-1730s to the early 1740s, hesitation grew over
the reliability of such testimony, which led the Nouvelles ecclésiastiques to accept some aspects of the movement, and reject others. By 1750, the authors of
the Nouvelles ecclésiastiques came to reject human testimony entirely, and they supplanted it with an exclusive
reliance upon Church tradition.

As early as July 1728 the Nouvelles ecclésiastiques featured the miracles at Saint-Médard in a lengthy two-page article that included
the names, ailments and accounts of cures that allegedly occurred at the deacon's
tomb.[23] While between 1728 and 1729 the Nouvelles published only ten articles dealing with miracles, after the explosion of miracle
reports at the cemetery of Saint-Médard the number shot up dramatically. There were
twenty-four articles on miracles in 1731 alone, and another fifty-nine over the following
two years. The majority of the articles dealt with miracles that occurred in Paris
by the supposed intercession of François de Pâris. Other articles reported miracles
that occurred outside the capital, and some were attributed to other saints. Many
of these articles contained miracle accounts and witness reports, while others contained
reports of various works written either to support or oppose these miracles.[24]

The author of an article on the biography of François de Pâris in June 1731 claimed
that this work contained reports of events “so marvelous” and “so recent” that “it
truly puts the criticism and malignancy of the century to the test,” since it is “founded
upon proofs so concerning, upon reports so evident, so sensible, so close to us, so
difficult to contradict, and so easy to verify, that one cannot read it without being
touched.”[25] However, the Nouvelles ecclésiastiques insisted thatit would only publish information about the cures once they had been
“cleared up and confirmed.”[26] An article published in August 1731assured readers that “the events under consideration
had been occurring in full public view and were known all over Paris.”[27] Clearly, there was a great deal of concern that the reports be veritable, or
at least believable. The Nouvelles ecclésiastiques called upon its readers to judge for themselves, providing them with the “obvious”
and “incontestable” signs that these miracles were not only verifiable, but also a
sign that God was supporting the appelant cause by bestowing them upon these “defenders of the faith.”

The Nouvellistes did not rely solely on the faith and credulity of their readers when discussing the
miraculous nature of these events. Beginning in 1731 the Nouvelles ecclésiastiques consistently provided “incontestable evidence” for the miracles they reported. In
August of that year the Nouvelles ecclésiastiques published an article, which contained twenty-two reports of miracles. These miracles
resulted in cures from a variety of maladies including ringworm, asthma, habitual
vomiting, and paralysis.[28] While each of these individuals had a unique story and ailment, the evidence
supporting these miracleswas strikingly uniform. Each cure had a series of witnesses:
those who attested to the person's prior ailment, and to the fact that these miracles
were incurable, those who attested to seeing the miracle itself take place, and those
who attested to the aftermath to ensure that the healing was complete. While some
of the witness reports came from family members and random passers-by, others came
from doctors and surgeons who affirmed the breach between the natural and the supernatural.

Perhaps the most important aspect of these reports is the degree to which the Nouvelles ecclésiastiques trusted witnesses. The paper consistently published the testimonies of those present
at the time of the miraculous event. These reports also relied upon the testaments
of those who were familiar with the cured person, or alternately, people who were
associated with the Royal Court (nobles, servants of nobles, or anyone else associated
with the nobility). The legitimacy of the reports was dependent on the credibility
of witnesses. By providing the testaments of various doctors and surgeons, the newspaper
called upon its readers to trust in the training and judgment of these experts. One
article claimed that these reports were “so sensible, so close to us, so difficult
to contradict, and so easy to verify,” that they “put the criticism of the century
to the test.”[29] However, the evidence provided relied almost solely upon the principle that readers'
fellow Parisians were reliable. Thus, the Nouvelles ecclésiastiques did not encourage readers to rely purely on their faith, but to base their reasoning
upon the testaments of their fellow man.

As this debate continued throughout the 1730s, the Nouvelles ecclésiastiques continued adamantly to defend the trustworthiness of Parisians. For example, in May
1732 the paper condemned the Jesuit play titled, Saint Déniche. The playwright claimed that the actors were composing a “Jansenist Theater." Throughout
the play, the actors mocked the credulity of those who believed in the miracles at
Saint-Médard. This credulity was portrayed as the result of “seduction”and the miracles
as “impostures payed for in a plot to seduce the people.”[30] Parisians were characterized as being “easy to seduce” and “heretical.” The author
of the play's handbill stated that “a spirit of vertigo or fanaticism burned ALL THE
BRAINS of this large city.”[31] However, the Nouvelles ecclésiastiques contradicted this defamation and adamantly defended the reputation of the people of
Paris, claiming that these “scandalous plays” were an insult to the “solid writings”
and “evident miracles,” whichwere “demonstrated and known” in all of Paris. The paper
claimed that these events “cannot be seriously and reasonably refuted.”[32] Despite the explosive criticisms of the Jesuits and other opponents of the miracles
and convulsions, the Nouvellesecclésiastiques asserted that these events were evidently attested by the people of Paris, who were
a thoroughly reliable source.

The Nouvelles ecclésiastiques faced a multitude of critics for their support of witness testimony. However, most
of these criticisms seem to have been limited to theological works with a relatively
limited circulation. One of the most widely criticized miracles was that of Anne Lefranc,
which occurred after the dismissal of her Jansenist-leaning curé from his postin 1730. After having suffered from blindness in one eye and partial
paralysis for almost thirty years, she was miraculously cured at the cemetery of Saint-Médard
on November 3.[33] The most ambitious critic wrote a twenty-four-page treatise opposing the miracle
of Anne Lefranc titled, Lettre à Monsieur ***. In this anonymous work the author disregarded the testaments of people and claimed
that “It is not necessary to be convinced to speak with assurance, one can mislead
without desiring to do so.”[34] In fact, he believed that those who supported the miracle had a good reason to
mislead and “worry simple people”: to gain support for their Jansenist heresy.[35] The author of the letter concluded by claiming that those who support the miracles
are of “a Sect that makes light of Religion, that buys miracles, and that pays in
deniers counting the seduction of the Public.”[36] Thus, clearly not everyone during this period found the common people a reliable
source of information, but rather, found them easily misled and gullible. Such criticisms
tended to appear often in theological treatises and letters. However, perhaps the
greatest difference between a treatise such as this one and the Collections of Miracles and the Nouvelles Ecclésiastiques is that the latter two were far more accessible to the lower classes and far more
widely distributed. That the more widely distributed—and, indeed, more widely read—works
strongly supported the reliability of the populace may suggest that during this period
there was a stronger tendency toward faith in human testament than against.

The Saint-Médard debate during this early period was two-sided: for and against. However,
the outbreak of convulsions in July 1731 transformed this debate into a multi-faceted
clash of theological and philosophical wits. In this dispute, each side attempted
to assess the reliability of Scripture, the Church Fathers, and human testimony. In
1733, a single article of the Nouvelles ecclésiastiques boiled down the convulsionary debate to three basic arguments. The first group embraced
every aspect of the movement, and believed that all aspects were divine. The second
group rejected some aspects of the convulsionary movement, such as the violent outbursts
and false prophecies, but accepted other aspects, like the miraculous healings. Finally,
a third group rejected the convulsions entirely. Some believed that the entire convulsionary
movement was an imposture (a stance held by most Jesuits who generally disdained all
Jansenists). Others believed that the convulsions were the result of natural causes,
and attributed them to a maladie épidémique [epidemic sickness] or overactive imaginations, inspired by their personal connection
to Pâris.[37] It is important to note that the discourse surrounding the miracles and convulsions
reflected a clashing of fundamental beliefs. Each group had a different perception
of how individuals ought to apply their reason in matters of faith. While some accepted
witness testimonies and found the convulsionaries to be trustworthy, others assumed
that they were heretical impostors, or people with overactive imaginations who had forsaken reason for fanaticism. These
groups disagreed over the degree to which individuals should base their faith on witness
testimonies, Church tradition, and what the authors of the Nouvelles ecclésiastiques unfavorably referred to as “pure reason.”

Despite increasingly diverse and vicious criticisms, the Nouvelles ecclésiastiques held that the convulsions were merely an extension of the earlier miracles at Saint-Médard.
One article noted that even the closing of the cemetery did not stop these convulsions,
which proved the divine force responsible for them. Thus the convulsionary movement
was considered to be very extraordinary “by virtue of the new circumstances that join
them to the actions that are already known.”[38] The article listed the various miracles that had occurred as the result of these
convulsions, including “sublime discourses of piety” spoken by simple and uneducated
people, beautiful prayers, complete cures for some people, and significant relief
from pain for many others, as well as the dramatic conversions of unbelievers. It
was admitted that some of the convulsionaries had falsely predicted certain events
that never came to pass, and spoken of “frivolous and sometimes shocking things.”[39] However, these were far fewer than the valid miracles and he resented the fact
that some had attempted to relate them to fanatiques of other periods.

Throughout the following decade, however, the Nouvelles ecclésiastiques slowly became more reliant on Church tradition as they grew more skeptical of the
trustworthiness of the movement's adherents. By the middle of the 1730s, the cult
of François de Pâris had lost its most powerful supporters, including most members
of the Parlement of Paris, and most Jansenists as well. These supporters abandoned
the cause primarily due to the violent actions of individual convulsionaries. Nevertheless,
the Nouvelles ecclésiastiques continued avidly to support the cult, believing that despite extreme manifestations,
the convulsionary movement still contained something praiseworthy. During this period
the paper's view of the cult fell between undoubted support and full condemnation,
and it began to rely more heavily upon Church tradition and doctrine to distinguish
true convulsions from false ones. Throughout the mid 1730s, the Nouvelles ecclésiastiques began to report works that relied more on tradition, and less on witnesses. In 1734,
the paper published a letter written by the theologian M. Le Gros, in which he claimed
that it was “very unjust to scorn them, or to judge the Convulsionaries in general,”
since these convulsions took a variety of forms.[40] He proclaimed: “Let us research ... the truth; let us use God to dissipate the
clouds; let us attach ourselves to the RULES, which are not subject to illusion.”[41] He called on his readers to rely on Church tradition to discern the real convulsions
from the false ones. Not only was this author calling upon his audience to base its
judgment upon tradition, he was also suggesting that perhaps witness testaments were
not entirely reliable, but rather they were “subject to illusion.”

Throughout the 1740s, tradition continued to supplant human testimony as the authenticating
force for miracles and convulsions. In January 1742 an article was published condemning
the latest work of Carré de Montgeron, a magistrate in the Parlement of Paris. Montgeron
was amongst the cult's most celebrated defenders and his work supported the convulsionary
movement with few reservations. The Nouvelles ecclésiastiques was critical of this work because “in critical times, and in events filled with obscurity”
it failed to address how essential it was to follow “the Rules of Scripture and of
Tradition.” According to this article, Montgeron was not mindful enough of those who
had the misfortune “to separate themselves from these sacred Rules.” Furthermore,
he failed to mention the mix present within the movementand thus, the article claimed,
these facts “should render us circumspect and precautioned.”[42] Because Montgeron was “very affectionate toward convulsions” and believed in
the virtues “of the greatest number of convulsionaries,” the criticism continued,
this led to “an involuntary exaggeration.”[43] In concluding the article, the Nouvelles ecclésiastiques claimed that certainty depends on good judgment and the use that one makes of that
judgment. Thus, to depend on impressions and instinct is to substitute these for the
rules of tradition.[44]

The authors of the Nouvelles ecclésiastiques were openly criticized for their position on Montgeron's work. The fact that these
criticisms were published in full in 1742 suggests that contributors were still in
the process of reconsidering their stance and that they had not definitively rejected
the convulsions. After critics published a second letter criticizing the paper's position
on this work, the Nouvelles ecclésiastiques decided to “abandon judgment to the public.”[45] By 1740 the debate over this issue had become exceedingly complicated. Nevertheless,
the Nouvelles ecclésiastiques still refused to condemn the convulsionary movement in its entirety. This support
was, however, growing increasingly thin. Throughout the following decade, the paper's
tone toward the convulsionaries grew increasingly critical. In 1743, the Nouvelles ecclésiastiques praised a work titled Response to the Complaint of legitimate defenders of the Convulsions that condemned the violent actions of the convulsionary movement as contrary to at
least five of God's laws. The paper declared this work “so clear, so solid, so instructive,
so conformed to the Rules and to the principles that one has always followed in the
Church;” the article continued, that“on the one hand, it will give rise to no reasonable
retort, and on the other hand ... it will irrevocably fix all incertitude on the object
of this appalling controversy.”[46] Thus, by the mid 1740s the Nouvelles ecclésiastiques both openly condemned the violent manifestations of the cult, and boldly asserted
that Church tradition took precedence over all other forms of evidence.

The very last article in which the convulsionaries received a significant mention
was written in December 1750. The article was a review of a theological work published
in 1749 titled Preservative against false principles. This work rejected individual authentication of miracles in favor of Church tradition.
The theologian asserted that “(t)he cause of truth does not at all depend upon people.
It draws all its force from the foundations on which it pleased God to rest them,
and which are none other than Scripture and Tradition.”[47] This theologian constructed his arguments using Scripture and tradition. He also
applied the voice and rules of the Church as well as its communal preaching. In its
review of this theological study, the Nouvelles ecclésiastiques affirmed its position that Church tradition was the only source to which one should
refer when analyzing religious matters.[48]

Between 1728 and 1750 the paper came full circle. In just over two decades, the Nouvelles ecclésiastiques slowly shiftedfrom supporting individual testaments, and encouraging their readers
to do the same, to rejecting any evidence that was not firmly grounded in Scripture
and Church tradition. However, this was clearly not the immediate result of the cult's
bizarre turn toward spiritual violence. The Nouvelles ecclésiastiques never condemned the entire convulsionary movement. The paper continually held that
the convulsions were divine, but that some people acted outside the divinely-imposed
regulations. As late as 1749 the paper published a letter written by the bishop of
Auxerre, in which he claimed that the biggest problem with Montgeron's work was that
it failed to recognize that the secours posed “a very great risk to one's health, when one is not bound to convulsions.”[49]The condemnation was not of the violent actions of the convulsionaries per se,
but of violent actions by people who pretended to have convulsions. The Nouvelles' support of this stance suggests that it was not the actions of the convulsionaries
which turned the paper against their cause. On the contrary the paper seems to have
no longer trusted that these people were not convulsionary impostors. The Nouvelles ecclésiastiques concluded this article by claiming that “We benefit from this occasion to exhort anew
and with the most vivid instances the people who well wish to contribute to the Mémoirs, to make us pass on only facts that are absolutely certain.”[50]From this period on, evidence that was “absolutely certain” was found not in witness
reports, but in hagiographies, Biblical narratives, and theological treatises. By
the middle of the eighteenth century, the Nouvellistes replaced the authority once
given to the people with Scriptural precedence and tradition.

Conclusion: The Paper, the People, and the Internalization of Piety

Although the Nouvelles ecclésiastiques came to reject the violent actions of the convulsionaries by the 1740s, the larger
editorial shift away from reliance on witness testimony cannot simply be explained
as a side effect of convulsionary extremism. Human testimony only gradually faded
from the articles of Nouvelles ecclésiastiques. The papercontinued to print reports of miracles through the early 1740s, with the
last recorded report in 1746. Like the earlier reports, they aimed to prove the authenticity
of these miracles by means of witness reports. Between the mid 1730s and the mid 1740s,
these reports decreased dramatically. Between 1733 and 1736 there were forty-one articles
in the Nouvelles ecclésiastiques that contained miracle reports, while between 1743 and 1746 there were only eight.[51]Thus, during the same period in which the Nouvelles ecclésiastiques slowly grew more critical of the convulsionary movement due to its increasingly apparent
break with Church tradition, it also slowly came to ignore the once celebrated miracles
based upon witness testimonies. Since miracle accounts continued to be published until
1746, it is clear that this shift from a reliance on human testimony to a reliance
on Church tradition was not the immediate result of convulsionary extremism, which
arose in the early 1730s. Furthermore, the primary editor of the Nouvelles ecclésiastiques, Jacques Fontaine de la Roche held his position from 1728 until 1762, which makes
it extremely unlikely that this shift was the result of a shift in newspaper personnel.[52]

In recent years, historians such as Catherine Maire and Dale Van Kley have argued
that the lack of reception to these events and the decline of support for the cult
was the result of the rise of incredulity throughout this period.[53] While a failure to report miracles may have been the result of a variety of factors,
including a general shift toward incredulity, sometimes deemed “dechristianization,”
it may also indicate a shift among those whose faith remained intact. That is to say,
perhaps some people were actually becoming more incredulous of their fellow man than
of supernatural phenomena. In the last few decades, historians have begun to stress
a general trend of internalization of piety in eighteenth-century France. Most notably,
John McManners has both combined and challenged various aspects of the “dechristianization”
thesis. He claims that much of the evidence used by historians such as Michel Vovelle
and Pierre Chaunu to support this thesis, in fact, indicates a “refinement in the
religious outlook.”[54] His study affirms that the people of eighteenth-century France slowly rejected
some of the more ostentatious and public forms of piety. However, McManners believes
that this abandonment indicates an internalization, rather than a depletion of piety.
He combines some elements of the “dechristianization” thesis with other developments
such as the increase in family affection and concludes that people's views toward
death were becoming increasingly internal and personal, and that religious rituals
surrounding death were becoming increasingly private and “lonely.” He believes that
this indicates a shift toward the internalization of piety in eighteenth-century France.[55]

The decline of religious associations is one of many signs of this internalization.
These religious associations “exposed the idea of the corporate life and responsibility
of Christians and their hope for a corporate salvation.”[56] Throughout the eighteenth century, this hope waned. The desire for corporate
salvation was displaced by an internalized view of individual salvation, based upon
personal adherence to Church rules and attention to Scripture. The shift toward Church
tradition and away from individual testimony in the Nouvelles ecclésiastiques suggests another manifestation of this trend. Throughout the eighteenth century, many
French people came to rely less on corporate salvation, and to believe that their
personal salvation was not inextricably linked to that of the community. Likewise,
it appears that the Nouvellistes came to believe that an individual’s judgment should
not rely on that of others.

However, this trend seems to have extended beyond the publishers of the Nouvelles.
This paperwas widely-distributed and attempted to appeal to a wide range of readers
in order to convert them to the cause of the appelants. While it is impossible to tell exactly how well these works were received, to some
extent the numbers speak for themselves. That between 4,000 and 6,000 copies were
distributed to eager readers each week suggests that the message being expounded was
more or less accepted. As the historian Robert Scribner has suggested, propaganda
in any age is unlikely to stray far from the most general values and concerns of its
intended audience.[57] Furthermore, there is evidence that people felt a great deal of attachment and
loyalty toward the paper. For example, when the archbishop Vintimille demanded that
his pastoral letter condemning the Nouvelles ecclésiastiques be read from the pulpit in all of the capital's parishes, twenty-one priests refused.[58]Even the cooperation of the clergy could not ensure that of their congregation.
When in May 1732 the recently appointed curé of the Jansenist parish of Saint-Jacques-du-Haut-Pas
tried to read Vintimille’s mandamus against the Nouvelles ecclésiastiques during his homily, the entire congregation left the church “leaving the curé to listen
to himself.”[59] Many people who had exposure to the newspaper clearly accepted and even defended
the message of the editors. The paper was overtly polemical and its information sometimes
bordered on gossip. Nevertheless, "it was gossip powerfully slanted, a weekly foray
of revenge against the majority party in the Church which was victorious in everything
except winning the hearts of the public."[60] As the historian Dale Van Kley has noted, the Nouvelles ecclésiastiques “found—indeed, even created—its own public.”[61] While the “public” regularly evoked in articles may have been initially rhetorical,
over time the Nouvelles managed to procure a real one. The Nouvellistes tried ostensibly to arouse as much support as possible for the appelant cause, and thus, they attempted to take positions to which they believed their audience
would be receptive.

Furthermore, since the journal published extensive criticisms of their own positions,
often without refutations, it is apparent that they were aware of, and responsive
to their audience. After the Nouvelles ecclésiastiques published its condemnation of Montgeron's work in 1741, it received a series of criticisms,
which were reported in a series of articles later that same year. The paper dedicated
an entire four pages to a letter written on behalf of the author of Reflections on the Miracle at Moisy, in which the author insisted that the miraculous cures that occurred as the result
of convulsions were no less divine than those that had occurred at the cemetery of
Saint-Médard a decade earlier. He claimed that it was “a false maxim to claim that
it is always necessary to prefer the certain to the uncertain.”[62] In July of 1742, apparently jaded by the debate and these criticisms, the Nouvelles ecclésiastiques decided “to abandon judgment to the public.”[63] This concession was the result of various criticisms from other highly learned
writers, which suggests that the Nouvelles ecclésiastiques did attempt to match its stances to those of the “public.”

Moreover, there is evidence to suggest that the Nouvellistes were not exclusively
responsive to their learned readers. In at least one case, the number of miracles
reported in one year resulted in a increase in enthusiasm for the trustworthiness
of individual testimonies in the following year. Between 1731 and 1734, the Nouvelles ecclésiastiques printed an average of twenty-five articles on miracles each year. These numbers dropped
significantly in 1735 and 1736, and these two years combined produced only nine articles
on miracles. However, the next year the number shot up again, from three in 1736 to
fifteen in 1737. The preliminary discourse for the Nouvelles ecclésiastiques published in January 1738 contained the most avid defense of witness testimony in
the history of the paper.The Nouvelles ecclésiastiques looked forward to a time when,

far from treating healed people as criminals of the State, far from exiling the witnesses
of their healing, both are heard without partiality by those to whom we know it pertains,
that (without needing to know how to read) the most simple, the least instructed amongst
the Faithful informs himself with care in his Province, in his city, in his Parish,
in his family, in his neighborhood. That he sees if his compatriot, his friend, his
neighbor, his relative did not suddenly recover his sight, his speech, his hearing,
the usage of his limbs, or the reestablishment of health that all human resources
could not have rendered him, and that it was done by the invocation of an appellant and by the application of his relics. In a word, that one has recourse with honesty
and simplicity to this report so decisive and so persistent that God surrendered to himself, in returning it to
his Truth, which has been cast into obscurity by the Constitution, BY MEANS OF THE
TESTIMONIES: all the clouds dissipate.[64]

While the surge of miracle reports in 1737 resulted in increased enthusiasm for the
reports in 1738, this enthusiasm was short-lived. From this time on there were no
more energetic defenses of the testimonies of the people. Between 1738 and 1746, there
was an average of four articles on miracles reported each year. As the number of miracles
reported decreased, so too did the enthusiasm of the Nouvelles ecclésiastiques for witness testimonies. In the 1740s, references to the miracles and the testaments
of witnesses disappeared from the preambles and they focus exclusively upon Unigenitus and the persecution of the Jansenists. By the 1750s, when the miracle reports had
ceased entirely, the preambles focused almost exclusively on Biblical stories. Instead
beginning the year's issue with a call to the public to judge the marvels around them,
they begin with moral lessons of Scripture and they consistently related their hardships
and successes to those found in the Bible.[65] The entire tone of the Nouvelles ecclésiastiques seemsto have followed the ebb and flow of popular enthusiasm for miracles and witness
reports. Thus, there was a symbiotic relationship between the Nouvelles ecclésiastiques and its intended audience, the common lay faithful.

The Nouvelles ecclésiastiques'support of witness testimonies seems to have correlated with the people's enthusiasm
for them. There is no indication that the newspaper singled out certain miracles and
failed to report others. Since the Nouvellistes continued to report some miracles throughout the 1740s, it is unlikely that they
would not have reported all of the miracles, as they had a decade earlier.A combination
of factors, including an editorial shift in the Nouvelles ecclésiastiques, the paper's large and receptive audience, and a general decrease in witness reports
of miracles, all between 1728 and 1750, indicates that the intended readers of the
Nouvelles ecclésiastiques, that is the common lay faithful, were becoming less credulous
of human testimony. Furthermore, these factors suggest another shift taking place
alongside “dechristianization”: a shift away from reliance upon the judgment of others
in matters of faith, and toward reliance upon Church tradition. The increased stress
of individual judgment based upon Church tradition in the Nouvelles ecclésiastiques was part of the larger trend toward internalization of piety throughout the eighteenth
century.

[24] Calculations are based upon how many entries there were under the title “miracles”
in the Tables de Matières of the Nouvelles Ecclésiastiques for the years 1728-1762, 297-313. This does not include the numerous entries of a
similar nature found under “convulsions” and “M. de Pâris” for the same years.

[51]These numbers are based upon those entries found under “miracles” in the Tables Matières for the Nouvelles Ecclésiastiques, which covers the period 1728-1762, pp. 297-313. The earlier set of years specifically
excludes the years of 1731 and 1732 before the closing of Saint-Médard, when the number
of reports was extremely high, since it would skew the degree to which articles on
miracle reports had declined. The latter set of years was chosen essentially because
it shows how uncommon these articles were in the last three years of their being reported
by the Nouvellistes.